New York Pizzeria

Seeks To Expand

Parking, Seating

Innovative PDD Zoning Sought

By JIM KEVLIN • The Freeman’s Journal & Hometown Oneonta

COOPERSTOWN – It’s a village hot-spot, and customers intent on New York Pizzeria’s offerings park along Chestnut and Elm streets, and in the off-hours fill the parking lots at the adjoining Bank of Cooperstown and Triple-A offices. With the popularity of the pizzeria, it’s imperative that they keep orders flowing to avoid long wait times. Many restaurants address this issue with the implementation of POS systems like those of Revel Systems which are designed to improve the customer experience and relationship, offer a more diverse range of payment choices, as well as help to build a detailed menu whilst keeping track of inventory levels and learning from real-time sales reports.

And that’s in the off-season.

Several months of village meetings from now, the crunch should ease, restaurateur Joe Vezza is predicting.

Triple-A has consolidated in Oneonta, Vezza’s bought the building, and he’s planning to demolish it to add 12 more off-street parking spaces.

The plan shifts the main entrance from Chestnut Street to the south side of the building, so patrons can enter from the parking lot. Also, three tables for outdoor dining may be added there.

Vezza, who since expanding from Richfield Springs a decade has also opened Bocca Osteria and The Upstate Bar & Grill, and his architect, Teresa Drerup, appeared before the Village Board Monday, April 22, to get a complicated regulatory process underway.

New York Pizzeria and the Bank of Cooperstown are in what’s been a pocket of commerce in the middle of a residential neighborhood for decades. The bank used to be an antiques store; the pizzeria, a deli.

In zoning terms, that means they’re non-conforming uses and, in theory, the idea is that over time they will disappear. If anything, these two businesses are more vigorous than any of their predecessors.

Three years ago, the bank pioneered what’s called a PDD, a Planned Development District, ensuring its status long term. Since, it demolished a house next door and expanded its parking lot.

Now, New York Pizzeria is going through the same process.

“It’s a big deal,” said Deputy Mayor Cindy Falk. “It changes the zoning map. It recognizes the fact that these businesses exist and will then continue to exist.”

A PDD, she explained, “it’s an exchange. There needs to be a community benefit. We know there’s a housing shortages in the village. So we said to the bank, you can be a bank, but you have to keep the apartment.”

She anticipates a similar concession from the pizzeria, which is expanding its upstairs apartment in plan Vezza presented Monday.

Further, the adjacent intersection of Chestnut, Delaware and Elm streets is considered “pretty difficult to navigate,” Falk said. With the future of the bank and pizzeria stabilized, the village can move ahead systematically to improve it, perhaps bringing in a traffic engineer to get things started, she said.

Finally, the project may result in benches at the corner of Elm and Chestnut where the Trailways bus stops, to accommodate passengers, she said.

All this presents even a more daunting series of regulatory hurdles than usual since, first, the PDD must be approved; once that’s done, the plan must go through the usual zoning process.

In May, Vezza and Drerup are scheduled to appear before the Historic Preservation & Architectural Review Board (second Tuesday), and the Planning Board (third Tuesday). Meanwhile, the Village Board will begin SEQRA, the state Environmental Quality Review.

If that’s done by June or July, the normal reviews can begin. If all goes well, Vezza may begin demolition in the fall, with construction in the spring of 2020.

Meanwhile, Vezza is already taking steps to resolve neighbors’ concerns, Falk said, moving a fan and dumpster to an alley on the north side of the building, between the pizzeria and the bank.